Back Again
by CodependentLiza
Summary: A love story grown from Bella's initial death wish and Edward's long-standing anger at God. Begins w/her second visit to his ER, and his rescue attempt that's also a wake-up call to his own arrogance, & misery. Contains refs to suicide attempts. Happy ending guaranteed, though it won't be easy getting there because life is hard, even for Edward-Bella. But not too hard! AH,cc's


**Happy Thursday morning to you! (Or whatever day and time it is in your world, now.)**

**I have two updates I could be editing (and will be soon, I promise), another couple of stories I really want to post, and a big cupcake-decorating playdate later today for my boys with an energetic family of three (cupcakes not baked yet, kitchen a mess, bags half-filled from grocery shopping trip last night still on the floor, get the picture?), as well as a continual case of nauseous disbelief ever since I started posting stuff on here that was never supposed to see the light of day, or more à propos, the binary code of the World Wide Web. I'm a 38-year-old woman writing Twilight fanfic! Where is my sense of propriety? Or better yet, my pride? Or, and I know others who would like to hear the answer to this one, MY JUDGMENT?**

**Same place it's always been, I guess: not here. Nope. Judgment, pride and definitely propriety are all off busily informing other people's actions, and I'm here alone, swathed in either foolish ignorance or loving optimism—you pick—working on a new story. Because if there's anything the world generally and my life in particular needs, it's a new angst-driven Twilight fanfiction! [Sigh.] At least it's more productive than playing Tetris with my college roommate instead of studying for finals; 20 years of living has had some positive influence on my procrastination and anxiety-avoidance, I guess. **

**Next question: why, out of all the possible story lines and scenarios I could be exploring badly, am I writing about attempted suicide? I don't know entirely. I _am_ aware of feeling an urgent need to communicate with any younger or more vulnerable people that are like me, and especially those who are suffering and scared.**

**I also—in case you haven't noticed—have an almost indefatigable need to work out my shame and grief at my own misadventures in life…though I remain profoundly grateful for where I've ended up.**

**Then there's my missionary zeal to educate the more stable and resilient of you in how the experience of emotional suffering doesn't have to be seen as a character flaw, but can be an enormous strength with great possible benefit to the sufferer and those around them, given the addition of certain skills, and a nonjudgmental and forgiving perspective.**

**Those are my beginning guesses as to what my subconscious self is up to, beyond the obvious anxiety-management and -avoidance. Anyway, this is where intuition and circumstance have led me, so here you go: an emotion-portrait of a desperate girl who doesn't want to be dead so much as she doesn't want to be alive, and hurting, any more.**

**And, because we all have more than enough reality to contend with as it is, of course Dr. Edward Cullen is in the picture. Who also, of course, just happens to be in the ER the night that our desperate girl is brought in after her second suicide attempt in as many months?weeks?(haven't figured that out yet) and decides—counter to all odds, conventional wisdom, medical training and even professional ethics—to intervene. Permanently. And a much more loving, happy, fulfilling, safe, joyful sort of "permanent" than Isabella had even begun to dream of receiving from death. Lucky, lucky girl.**

**Any of us who've actually tried Bella's initial approach to pain management in this story know from experience that real-life suicide attempts, and their psychologically gory aftermaths, usually involve far more vomit, blood and tears and a whole hell of a lot more humiliation than she has to endure; I'm also sure that most of us cannot report finding a savior in the ER. Thank God for fantasy.**

**But for just a moment, humor this anxious procrastinator and let's talk about some of the reality of suicide, and suicidal thinking. Years ago, for a short while, I studied it from a clinical perspective, and years before that, from a personal one. Here is what I know:**

**1. Never keep pills, including over-the-counter pain medications, in the same location as a desperate teenaged girl. It can be a deadly combination, sometimes even when the girl maybe didn't quite mean it that way.**

**2. Never keep firearms in the same location as a depressed teenaged boy (and don't be naïve enough to think they won't figure out how to load them). Boys attempt less, but succeed more often than girls because they pick more effective means. Make them have to work for it…it will give them time to think twice, and then again.**

**3. If YOU are a desperate teenaged girl, or adult, don't mess around with overdosing as a means of communicating to yourself or others just how miserable you are. The effects of even a few pills can be unpredictable, and have irreversible consequences. For example:**

**You could be really lucky, and end up like I did many years ago, puking up most of the pills your stomach wisely refuses to process, hopefully with no long-term consequences.**

**You could end up like my psych ward roomie from way back when, and have a dramatic hospital stay followed by being, well, my psych ward roomie. Wait, scratch that; I'm not there anymore, haven't been for a long while, and have no intention of going back. Psychological suffering is one pain category for which "hospitals" do not necessarily equal "help." Which means, as much fun as it can be temporarily to have a buddy with whom to attempt subversion of unit rules and obnoxious staff members, and to compare suffering notes with while the unit's on lock-down because somebody else is getting strapped to a gurney and medicated, it really isn't fun. And you know what really, _really_ isn't fun? Going right back to the old life you had before all the indignity, with even less self-esteem, but even more reason for people to look at you funny, and your family to give you a hard time, whether they mean to or not.**

**You could of course end up dead. More on that below.**

**Or, you could end up attached to machines in the hospital, wishing more strongly than you did before that you were dead already. And that's because you _are_ going to die, sooner rather than later, unless the liver transplant waiting list moves fast enough. And if it doesn't, the "sooner" won't be soon enough to spare you a slow and painful death, all the time having to witness the people you care about watching you suffer and die. [For a poignantly lovely fanfiction account of just this scenario, see "Lust on a Deathbed" by dyedinwool. She's _good_.] Of course, should you end up in this situation yourself, there won't be an Edward to save you. On the other hand, peace and love are possible anytime, anywhere; so God bless you, whatever you do, although I still hope you won't do this.**

**4. I don't have any specific words of wisdom for desperate teenaged boys, I'm afraid, though I better work on that because I have two young sons. What I've done for them so far is more prophylactic: acknowledging that suffering is a normal, even beneficial part of life [Don't you wish you had me for a mom? 'Hey boys, let's suffer today! It will be fun!']; that life is not remotely fair; that sometimes feelings are so strong they seem like the whole reality-but they're not, even when they are sure to come again. They're part of reality, an important part, but they're not everything.**

**What _is _everything? For me, it's love. Not the happy, ooshy-gooshy, aren't-we-all-wonderful kind of love that Bella and Edward get in most fanfiction that I'm willing to read; but the everything-love that is there too—the bedrock, the base—in the best, most soul-satisfying parts of the Twilight saga and stories spun off from it.**

**You know what love I'm talking about: it's the one that hurts, that's hard—harder than anything else, really, because the rules are always changing and you can never be absolutely sure what is right and what is wrong, and yet you're constantly called to take action in the middle of the uncertain, terrifying, pain-inducing mess. It's the love that puts other before self even when the other doesn't seem to give a damn, but not to the point of selfish satisfaction in masochistic acts…it's a tricky balance (Edward is nodding). It's the love for self despite our failings; for partners despite their failings too; for families despite all the ways they hurt us; for community despite all the ways it's messed the blankity-blank up. Because if there's anything humans can be counted on to do, it's to mess things up; to hurt other people; to, as Amy Ray sings in the Indigo Girls song "Gone Again," "take the love we're given and throw it all away."**

**Which brings us back to suicide, the practical consequence of which is the rejection of love, even when the intent is merely pain management (Edward is nodding again). Suicide is very much about pain, of course, and I would never minimize the suffering, and the need, oh God the need, of those who attempt or complete it for relief from pain. In that way, I can see the logic of the perspective that suicide is the end stage of a disease process. When an organism reaches a biological breaking point, in this case the experience of too-extreme emotion, the organism dies. To expect anyone to bear the unbearable is both practically futile and, in my opinion, morally wrong.**

**But suicide is not only about pain, it's about the absence of human connection strong enough to override the pain. Setting aside the issues of sociological context, such as the role of race and racism, economic class and expectations, homophobia, etc., let's look from the individual's perspective at the other side of the decision-making scale. All of us have potential reasons for killing ourselves, whether we think of them that way or not. But what we also all have are reasons _not_ to kill ourselves, whether we realize it or not. Too often, I think, we focus only on managing the pain of desperation. Don't get me wrong, that's important. But maybe even more important is bringing out and emphasizing all the ways the sufferer is needed by the rest of us.**

**The tricky thing is that _being_ needed is not equivalent to _feeling_ needed, so the argument is not an emotional one and therefore might be difficult to use in influencing a person's emotional state, e.g. suicidal feelings. However, the logic of this argument—that you should not kill yourself because you're needed by the rest of us for as long as you can manage to keep breathing—is strong, and with effort, skill and repetition can eventually make itself _felt_ too (voice of experience here).**

**What is that strong logic? Just look around. I mean, really look. Life is consistently hard—sometimes brutal—for most people, in most places, in most times. And so every person, in every place, is almost certainly guaranteed the opportunity to make some aspect of life some little bit less brutal for some other person or people. In short, we need each other, we really _need _each other, not just in sexy feel-good ways, but as fellow stavers-off of doom.**

**There's an admittedly fine line between "reason for living" and "guilt trip," and one can see how a suffering person might resent the suggestion that they should suffer some more so that others don't have to. This is guilt, and it isn't helpful, or fair, but it is invoked by individuals and corporate bodies (think hard about religions' stand) as an argument against suicide, albeit for their own selfish reasons, or their own fear.**

**In contrast, holding on to the desire to help, to serve, and to love in a universal sort of way is a reason for living that transcends individual relationships, and institutional rules. It's one rare area where outcome is irrelevant and intent is everything, and because it is the product of our own heart and not others' needs and fears, it belongs to and is defined by us, or us and our God(s), alone. This transcendent nature of the desire to serve and to love is, like most good things in life, both invaluable and a royal pain in the a$$, especially when you're hurting. Still, when after much drama and, of course, suffering you get a moment of clarity in which you see yourself serving your idea of the greater good in your own way ("…Work in [your] own way according to the light that is in [you]"—Lydia Maria Child), the beauty of it, the ineffable, unspeakable joy, makes all that pain worthwhile, at least for the moment.**

**So the next time you think about suicide, if you think about suicide, make sure you weigh against the current and projected pain of your situation not just the immediate aftermath to the people you are currently connected to, and the loss of your future moments of happiness and joy, but also the enormous loss of all your possible future acts of love, big and small, to all the world around you. I promise, you would be missed.**

**My life-is-hard, make-the-best-of-it advice may not lead one to think I'm going to give Edward much to do in this story, but that would be deceiving…because of course he'll get a workout making Bella's life impossibly pain-free, safe and happy. Well, maybe not totally pain-free this time around, but I'm sure going to make it easier for her than any of us have it, because that's what I do. I can't fix life just right for me, I can't fix life just right for you, I can't even—God help me—fix life just right for my children, but I can do it for Bella, and even for Edward, though he doesn't know yet how much his life needs fixing. **

**Gotta love an arrogant, over-confident Edward. At least when he's loving and loyal too.**

**Best wishes, and thanks for reading. xo liza**

**Oops! I almost forgot the very important disclaimer that all the Twilight-specific elements of this story are the property of the marvelous Stephenie Meyer! However, I'm sure she'd agree that the emotional disturbance is mine, allllll mine. Enjoy!**

**XXXXXX**

Ugghh…waking up. Don't feel good. Trying to open my eyes. Something's off—the light; it's wrong. It's….mmmm, bluish, like I'm underwater or… someplace with… bad fluorescent lighting? Ugghh, I hate fluorescent lighting. Eyes closing.

Oh no! Beeping. I hear beeping. Why is there this obnoxious beeping sound? It won't stop. It sounds, and smells—ick—familiar here. Where am I? Not home, in Phoenix. Not home, at Charlie's. Not home, at Grandma Maureen's. Not home, in my woods. Something's off. Something's not right… I'm trying to remember. What was I doing when I fell asleep? Why is my throat so sore? Am I sick? Am I in the—

Hospital. Oh my God, I am in the hospital! Again. Oh my God, Charlie is going to kill me!

Oh my God, why can't I kill myself? What did I do wrong this time? Why is it so hard?

I swear I did it right! Someone must have found me. But Charlie was at work—

Jacob! Oh my God. Jacob found me! It wasn't a dream. It wasn't a dream.

I'm not sure what I feel right now… Upset? Angry? Frustrated? … Relieved?

I mean, he said he would help me. He said he would take care of me. But then, he's not here, is he?

I'm not sure. I can't hear him.

I can hear someone moving around, and quiet voices. Two. A woman's, a nurse's I suppose, and a man. Someone I don't know.

Wait, there he is again. What is he saying? I _do _know him. I don't know from where, but I know him.

No, I do know, but I don't want to. If I don't think about it, maybe he'll go away. Maybe the memory will go away too. Maybe I'll just float away. I almost feel like I'm floating now. I feel strange; detached; half-not-here. Maybe I could die yet, I just have to put a little more oomph into it; a little more effort.

I'm concentrating. I'm trying. Please, take me God! Please, take me home. Please, Grandma Maureen! It hurts too much here.

Oh no, there's that voice again! I won't think about what he's saying.

"I think she's awake, Kate."

Who's Kate? Oh no, I'm listening. Don't listen! No listening. That voice—in my ear.

"I know you're awake, Isabella."

Is he talking to me? I won't listen! I'll keep pretending I'm asleep; I'll turn my head away from him and pretend he's not here.

Oh, crap! I've just given myself away. Stupid girl!

That smug voice laughs.

Oh no, oh no; it can't be him!

I open my eyes, just a slit, just to check. But I haven't turned my head back, so all I see is-wires. And tubes. And a machine. Ugghh. I hurt. Everything hurts.

Why do I hurt? It wasn't supposed to hurt. I'm supposed to be gone.

Without thinking, I turn my head again, and he's there. Right in front of me, leaning in. His eyes are intense, watching me. They're like before, only not so angry.

No, he's not angry this time. Is that because I'm dying? Is he kind when people are dying, instead of being stupid teenaged girls who can't even get killing themselves right?

Maybe I said that aloud somehow, because now he's smiling. As handsome as he was angry, he's gorgeous-supernaturally gorgeous-when he smiles. Maybe I _am_ dead. Maybe I am dying. Maybe this is one last good dream I get before I go.

I smile at the thought. His smile grows bigger.

I feel someone take my hand. The other hand is big, and cool, and strong. Is it his?

He nods. He says something. I don't understand.

I listen again, harder this time. Maybe he'll repeat it.

"You're okay, sweetheart," he says.

I'm okay? What does that mean? Why does he care? I don't want to be okay. I don't understand.

I want to go home. I want to pretend none of this happened. I want to start over. From Phoenix – no, don't think about Phoenix. From Grandma Maureen's. Maybe I'm there now. Maybe I'm having a nightmare. Maybe –

But it's not Grandma Maureen's voice waking me up from a nightmare now; it's his voice, again.

"What's wrong, sweetheart? Are you scared?"

His hand is moving, stroking my hand, moving up my arm. Oh my God, Charlie is going to be so mad.

Why is this man being kind to me? What's going on? Why do I feel so good when he touches me? It makes me feel … safe. But safe is a lie!

He's lying to me with his hand! He's calming me down so he can send me to the psych ward, like he wanted to do last time. I know it! He would have locked me up and thrown away the key!

Where's the nice doctor from before? The one who rescued me the last time I was here, when this man scared me so much?

I laugh-short, hard, bitter-to think that I would be that lucky again.

I hear his voice, but I'm not listening. NO!

But the voice gets closer. I can feel it now, I can feel his breath. Oh my God, he's hovering over me.

This can't be normal. I must be making this up. How can he be over me like this? And his hands—on my shoulders. In my hair. Wiping tears off – am I crying? I don't understand.

"I know you don't understand, Isabella. But you're safe. You're going to be okay. I've got you. Everything will be all right-I promise."

When will he stop mocking me like this?! It hurts! I need to get away. I need to get away!

Maybe if I pull my arm away-

"Isabella! Stop fighting me. Nothing bad is going to happen, honey. There's no need to fight me. I'm not an asshole tonight."

Oh my goodness, he knows! He knows he hurt me before; he knows he hurt me last time I was here. Maybe…maybe he knows I tried to do it right this time? Not to be a burden again? Maybe it wasn't my fault?

Of _course_ it was your fault, you stupid b. Who tried to kill herself and got it all wrong? Who did it AGAIN tonight?

I can't stand it. I can't stand it! I can't stand being here—being me—one second more!

I'll curl up into a ball, and get this IV out-

"Isabella! Stop trying to hurt yourself!"

Okay, so he's got my arms, maybe if I swing my legs off the bed-

"Dr. Cullen, should I code her?"

"No, Kate, page Dr. Whitlock." … "Isabella, you don't get to do that anymore."

Jerk! He's got me so I can't do _anything_ anymore. He was going to call security on me! I'll stop fighting for a minute, but not because of him. I won't do anything for him!

No, wait a second; that's not right. It was the nurse who wanted to code me. He KEPT the nurse from calling the security team on me. I should be grateful to this man; the man pinning my arms and legs to the bed.

Then why am I so mad?!

I've got to get out of here! He has to have relaxed his hold a little by now. He won't be expecting another fight; he thinks I've given up. I'll just be sudden, move all at once and-

"Ah ah ah; I'm not loosening my grip, sweetheart. Go ahead and try that all you want; it won't do you any good."

He's right, damn it—I'm giving it everything I've got and I can't move him off of me.

I think I hear the door opening... Oh no! Please don't let it be Charlie…please don't let it be Charlie…please-

"Tackling the patients again, Cullen?"

Oh no. Oh God, this is so embarrassing! But thank God it's not Charlie. It's that nice doctor from before.

Maybe he'll get me out of here again. But he said I shouldn't come back! Is he going to be mad that I'm back here? Maybe he'll yell at me…oh no, please God, don't let him yell at me. I can't handle it, God! Please?!

"I think she's afraid of you tonight, Jazz. Did you threaten her when you discharged her?"

"Well, I do remember giving her strict instructions not to do anything requiring a repeat visit."

I can feel the mattress sinking down. Somebody's sitting next to me, and the angry-well, used-to-be-angry-doctor is still on top of me, holding my wrists, his legs pinning mine. Somebody else is touching me now, too; the new person sitting next to me is gently brushing hair off of my face, and tucking it behind my ears. I will not like this! I will _not_ give in! This is a trap. This can't be real. This is too good—

But the new voice I half-think I'm making up in my head is still talking, closer to me now-from right next to me: "Strict instructions that someone really ignored. Hey there, sunshine; how are you feeling, darlin'?"

He's so nice. I can't not respond! That would be rude. "Um, I'm okay, thank you."

There, that was all right. Scratchy, of course, but it sounded kind of believable. Now I should be polite, and ask him how he is. "How are you tonight, Doctor?"

They're laughing at me! Both of them!

Oooh, I'm so mad! I can't believe I thought for one second they were being nice to me. They're making fun of me! Of course, why wouldn't they? I'm –

"Hey, sweetheart, we're not laughing at you." It's _him_ again. The first doctor from last time; the one who was so… so… so _disgusted _with me. The one on top of me now. I think I'm crying. I know I'm so confused.

"Bella, darlin', I'm sorry." Oh, thank you God. That's the nice one again, the one who sent me home before instead of having me committed.

And the one who told me not to do this again! But he doesn't seem mad. Thank goodness, he doesn't seem mad. Maybe he'll help me after all. Maybe—but he's saying something else. Oh no, I better—

"…it's really not funny, it's just that you're in a very small minority of patients who even bother to _think_ about the doctor's well-being when they're as uncomfortable as you must be right now, let alone _ask _them about it." Oh. Well that's a good thing, right?

"What Dr. Whitlock is saying, sweetheart, is that we _are_ laughing at you, but it's because you're really sweet, and cute; not because of anything bad." Oh my goodness, the angry doctor keeps calling me sweetheart. He wasn't this kind before; he wasn't kind at all. Why—wait a second!

I'm not bad? He really thinks—the angry doctor really thinks—I'm not bad? I can't help but turn my head and stare up at him, for just a second, in shock. His eyes are too close; too knowing; just too much. So I close my eyes again while I keep trying to figure this out.

They say something, then something else; have a conversation with each other. I'm still stuck on "not because of anything bad." Is that even possible? I'm bad all the way through; I must be, to have messed up so completely in a life that seems so easy in other people's eyes.

Was it sarcasm? It didn't sound sarcastic.

Maybe they think that being kind is the way to keep me from being a problem here? That's right—I almost forgot. I can't believe I almost forgot! There's a locked unit right here, in this hospital. Maybe they're getting ready to put me there? It's a small one; the big one is in Port A. Or—oh no, maybe I'm on it already? Surely they wouldn't put me there while I'm still attached to all these machines? Please?

Charlie's told me about the psych ward here before; the people who end up there. Meaning, the people he takes there, trapped in the back of his cruiser, like problem dogs to the pound. They're funny stories to him. Funny and sad, I guess.

I can see the sad, but not the funny. I don't feel funny. I suppose though these doctors will find something more about me to laugh on later, maybe this morning, when their shift is done. When they leave.

I'm tired. I think I could fall back asleep. Maybe when I wake up, things will be different.

Maybe I'll be gone.

Maybe I won't hurt.

Maybe, I'll be okay. I don't really think that's possible any more, but it's nice to dream about. Even better, dream that I'm safe. Dream that I'm safe...dream that someone wants me...


End file.
